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Thursday, 17 March 2011

You may or may not have been aware that Saturday March 5th was World Book Night. Taking place two days after World Book Day, World Book Night was an ambitious project supported by the Publishers Association, the Booksellers Association, the Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, World Book Day, the BBC and RTE. It saw one million booksgiven away by volunteers to random members of the public across the UK and Ireland. I applied to be a volunteer and was sent 48 copies of Sarah Waters' fantastic book Fingersmith to give away. I spent Saturday 5th walking the streets of Leeds giving out copies to lovely people.

It felt really satisfying to give things away to grateful individuals and the event rekindled my love of literature. World Book Night also inspired me to make a new version of "The Bookworm" Ring. Consisting of a bronze tone adjustable ring base and a miniature book with real paper pages, this little homage to literature is a great way to show your love of reading. Plus, it is available in four colours - red, blue, green or brown - and is the perfect gift for someone special as you can write a secret note in its tiny pages! Cute!

If you're as obsessed with literature as I am, why not head over to www.judgingcovers.co.uk. Judging Covers is a book review blog written by women, for women. You'll be sure to find honest reviews of interesting books. Who knows it might help you decide what to read next.

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

You may or may not know that I adore Harry Potter. And so, when my wonderful boyfriend Mark, told me we were going to see and go on the Hogwart's Express I smiled so much my face nearly broke. The train was visiting The National Rail Museum in York - which train lovers and haters should all go to, there's something for everyone - and even though we had to wait for ages in a queue in the biting cold to board the train, it was worth it.

To coincide with the Hogwart's Express visit, the museum had also put on a show for children involving a man dressed as Dumbledore performing magic tricks and an owl display. I loved the owls but I also found something I loved that was non-Harry-Potter-related tucked away in a corner - a stuffed railway collection dog called "Laddie". According to the information provided by the museum, railway collection dogs were common in large stations in England between the late-19th and mid-20th centuries. They were looked after by the station staff and performed tricks in exchange for money for railway charities.

"Laddie" - the lovely dog in photo above - was born in 1948 and worked in Wimbledon Station from 1949-1956 collecting money for the Southern Railwaymen's Homes in Woking. He collected over £5000 during his working life and when he retired he went to live with the old people at the Home he had collected money for. He died in 1960, was stuffed and returned to Wimbledon station with a donation box. He collected for the homes again until 1990 when he became part of the National Railway Collection. There's still a little donation box at the bottom of the glass case so Mark and I donated some money, and if you ever see him make sure you give him something too!

Thursday, 3 March 2011

This month I will be giving away my "Let Them Eat Cake Version Deux" vintage inspired necklace to one lucky fan! To see more photos and a description of the piece click here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/63556467/let-them-eat-cake-version-deux-bronze TO ENTER all you need to do is visit either the etsy shop -http://www.pennymasquerade.etsy.com- or the brand spanking new shop - www.pennymasquerade.com - find your favourite item and post a reply to this message telling everyone what it is and why you love it. SIMPLE! I will ship internationally so anyone and everyone can enter. Multiple entries can be gained by blogging and/or tweeting about this giveaway on twitter (please provide the link to your post below as evidence) and/or becoming a follower of my blog (please let me know what you have done in a message below). Plus you can now get an extra entry by joining my mailing list! Just scroll down the page until you see the mailing list box on the right and enter your name and e-mail. Each extra thing you do will gain you one extra entry! Each thing you do to gain an additional entry needs to be listed in a separate message as I will be using a random number generator to pick the winners. Once the numbers have been generated I will go down the list of entries until I find the corresponding entries.

PLEASE REMEMBER to leave your name and e-mail address so I can contact you if you win. If I can't contact you another winner will be chosen. The competition closes on the 31st of March and a winner will be chosen on the 1st of April. GOOD LUCK!!! xx

Congratulations to Heathery who won the February Penny Masquerade contest! Your Alice necklace will be making its way to you as soon as I receive your address. If you didn't win, don't worry! A new contest is due to begin this evening!